Sierra Leone

MDG Goal 3 - Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women

 Background

 

Goal	Relevant Target
Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women	Target 4: Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005 and in all levels of education no later than 2015

The SL-HDR 2007 reports significant progress in addressing gender equalities.

Accompanying the closure of the gender gap in education, the share of women in the labour force rose from 51.3% to 53% during the same period. This would seem to contrast with the Sierra Leone Integrated Household Survey (SLIHS) report of 2005, which states that 93% of urban resident women and 94% of rural women who are economically active are not paid employees.

Despite reported progress, gender inequalities are still strong in Sierra Leone. Women’s access to health services (particularly to antenatal care, emergency obstetric care and safe delivery services) is most in need of improvement. The SLIHS report on the status of wage earners confirmed that female-headed households are in general poorer than male-headed households. There are no clear indications from any of the reviewed documents that household activities are shared in any significant way that favours women, nor can one conclude that the rural woman’s daily chores are alleviated by any specific investments in time-saving technology. Access to land remains a major problem for women in Sierra Leone.

Also, in Sierra Leone, violence is prevalent among women and girls across all ethnic groups, irrespective of age, religion, class, and political affiliations. They are all vulnerable and their safety is guaranteed neither in the home nor in the public sphere. In particular, domestic violence has been considered “normal” to a particular point, worsened with the culture of silence surrounding it.  Debate regarding the magnitude of the problem is also clouded by the fact that violence against women and girls is a crime that is under-recorded and under-reported. This, to a large extent has to do with the patriarchal nature of the society and the entrenched cultural practices that are biased against women and girls.  Consequently, significant numbers of women experience more than one type of violence. In particular, during the rebel war, women bore the brunt of the atrocities committed.  Where men died in war as valiant soldiers, women were raped and made to suffer multiple indignities.  Their bodies were used as weapons of war to break families and communities. 

Based on these observations, it is safe to conclude that gender inequality is an important intervention area both from the perspective of addressing income poverty and improving human poverty in Sierra Leone.

The needs assessment and costing for the gender sector has been limited to gender specific interventions that are not captured in other sectors. This means that the results shown here are only a partial cost of attaining the gender goal, since most of what is required in attaining the gender goal in particular is already costed for in other sectors. Consequently, the gender sector assessed the needs and how much it will take to encourage political participation of women, to end violence against women, to raise awareness of sexual and reproductive health issues, to help the transition of girls to work, to address systemic issues, and to provide training in gender budgeting, so as to make real in Sierra Leone the objectives of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women. All of these activities will cost about US$126.5 million for the period 2007-15, to reach the MDGs. The cost rises from about US$8.2 million in 2007 to about US$19.2 million in 2015.

A major recommendation from the study is that the attainment of the Gender Goal, MDG 3, will only be possible with provision of adequate resources, coordination monitoring and evaluation of programmes both in the gender specific sector and gender related sectors.